I made the gumbo tonight. It was pretty good but I did find I needed more cajun seasoning to spice it up a bit more.

Also, the instructions say the roux takes 10 minutes but it took me 20 minutes and looking online, some people comment that gumbo roux can take up to 30 minutes. Overall, I think I can make the gumbo a staple.

_________________You are all a disgrace to vegans. Go f*ck yourselves, especially linanil.

A certain chain restaurant formally here in Oz, inspired by Texas, used to have these most amazing peanuts in the shell. Mostly I went for the peanuts, and the margaritas.

I was super excited by the recipe for Cajun Boiled Peanuts, took awhile to hunt down roasted peanuts in the shell, there was a time when all the supermarkets had them. Finding the seafood boil mix is proving difficult, but foodsubs.com suggests Old Bay Seasoning as a substitute, now that I can easily find.

_________________“Life is too important to be taken seriously.” - Oscar Wilde

We made the tangy tempeh chops for dinner and the cajun sausages for breakfast. Both are good but i though the tempeh was fabulous. Will definitely make that again. Also, the no bake cookies are wonderful.

_________________Panda With Cookie If I get caught as a fugitive eating chain pizza, its going to be Pizza Hut. -linanilanil

I made the hoppin john with sausage last night and it was pretty good. It is a pretty simple dish but it adds a little variety to our bean rotation :) I had collards so I used those instead of cabbage and I also added hot sauce directly to the dish (texas pete). I'm not really a fan of gimme lean but it wasn't bad in the dish. Maybe it was just me but I did have to add a little bit more water to the beans than the recipe called for but everything turned out good.

_________________You are all a disgrace to vegans. Go f*ck yourselves, especially linanil.

many years ago, i loooooved the gardenburger riblets. i don't buy that stuff now because i don't buy fake processed meats, but the taste of bianca's burgers (in a very good way!) reminded me of the riblets!

as for a biscuit...... if you peek at my blog, i recently linked to an awesome vegan biscuit recipe...... so darn good!

_________________"....but I finally found block tempeh a few weeks ago with the intent to give it my virginity." -Moon

The Holy Mole Chocolate Chile Cake is sooooo good! It's listed as cupcakes in the book but I was feeling lazy so I baked mine in a square 9x9 inch pan. It's amazing, moist and chocolatey and spicy. I'll have to remember this dessert next time I need something Mexican inspired for Cinco de Mayo.

I made the BBQ 'pulled' tempeh and carrot sandwiches with the poppy seed cole slaw tonight. Very tasty! I think the recipe is a bit off, though; it says it makes 2 sandwiches, but I think you could easily get 4-6 out of the recipe. Perhaps my carrots were extra large. I also used the entire batch of BBQ sauce. No problem--happy to have leftovers. I will certainly make this again; it was every bit as good as any sandwich I could get at Veggie Galaxy, a favorite local restaurant.

So I was on the fence about buying this book for ages, just because southern food isn't a 'thing' here at all- it's probably the cuisine I'm least familiar with. I wasn't sure how much I would use it because honestly, I don't even know what grits are. But I finally got it and I'm actually excited to cook from it this week!

I made the chocolate chip praline cookies first, they came out a bit too soft (I baked them towards the lower end of the time given and they probably could have used another minute in the oven), but I ate way too many yesterday so they must have been good enough to overlook that. I also made the mashed sweet potatoes and the dijon-pecan seitan last night. It was super awesome and is probably one of my new favourite meals! Like, I think I want this for my birthday dinner. I don't usually like American-style sweet potatoes with spices added and stuff, but the mash was really good, and the seitan was amazing. The chicken-style seitan is awesome and definitely the most 'chickeny' seitan recipe I've tried, and the coating and glaze and everything is just perfect. That meal alone was totally worth the cost of the book!

I should point out that I changed the method slightly- I didn't have the liquid at a full boil when I added the seitan, it was just at a slow simmer. I've had bad experiences with brainy seitan from boiling broth in my early seitan-making days. This one came out super firm and perfect!

I made coleslaw based on the recipe in this book, but I wouldn't say I made this coleslaw because I changed it so much (no onion because I can't eat raw onion, replaced some of the mayo with yogurt because I ran out of mayo, no poppy seeds). Then I made the BBQ tempeh sandwiches (but with tofu) using the BBQ sauce from the book. I had them on bread rather than buns (and open-faced so I had enough calories left to have dessert) with some fries. They were really good, but I can't imagine anything being bad with that BBQ sauce. I'd definitely make this again. In fact, I might even try it with tempeh (we generally aren't fans, but sometimes it works).

_________________A pie eating contest is a battle with no losers. - amandabear

Made a couple more things from this last week- we did brinner one night, with the cheesy scramble, buttermilk biscuits, tofu ham and sausage gravy. I'd never had American biscuits before, and I kind of forked them up because I was out of baking powder so I had to use some ancient self-raising flour from the back of the pantry. I never bake with the stuff so I have no idea how long it's been there- I guess too long, because they didn't really rise at all. But they were still super flaky and great with gravy. I wasn't a huge fan of the tofu ham, but I always hated real ham (I know, smart decision. I just thought the recipe sounded interesting and I wanted to try it!) so that's probably a good thing for anyone who actually misses ham flavours!

We also made the hot wangs (with much giggling) and these were a total hit. Boyfriend loves any kind of wing recipe, and he's declared this one his new favourite. It's replacing a long-standing love affair with a deep-fried tofu wing recipe, so I'm quietly pleased to have replaced it with a healthier, easier to make version. I served this with the ranch dressing (really good) and the unfried corn, which I loved. I'd never really tried anything like it before but it's a keeper!

Made some superbowl wangs and loved them!! I was not in love with the boiling method with the seitan-making, but that's just cuz I'm so used to either steaming or baking it normally. Once the wangs were breaded, baked, and bathed in hot sauce and EB, all bad memories of brainy-looking seitan were wiped clean!